At left: Joseph Fowler (left), assistant professor of physics, and a group
of graduate students have been testing components of the Atacama Cosmology
Telescope on the roof of Jadwin Hall. Work with the telescope, which will be
constructed in Chile, is part of a multi-institution, multinational project led
by Princeton and funded by the National Science Foundation to provide students
with opportunities to engage in leading edge investigation within an
international research environment.

Grant fosters international collaboration along with innovative cosmology research

Posted November 4, 2005; 08:43 a.m.

by Anne Sasso

A major new grant will take Princeton researchers
around the world in search of answers to some of cosmology’s most pressing
questions.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $2.35
million Partnership for International Research and Education grant to the
Princeton-led Southern Optical Astronomical Survey. The multi-institution,
multinational project’s goal is to provide students with opportunities to
engage in leading-edge investigation within an international research
environment.

“We’re hoping that this really establishes a program of
international collaboration,” said co-principal director David Spergel.
“Intellectually, we’re hoping to use this as a way to provide substantial
research training for students — undergrads, grad students and postdocs — at
Princeton, and in South Africa and Chile.”

Spergel, professor of astrophysical sciences, co-directs the
project with Lyman Page and Suzanne Staggs, both professors of physics; Joseph
Fowler, assistant professor of physics; and Robert Lupton, senior research
scientist in astrophysical sciences. The Princeton scientists are teaming up
with top physics and astronomy researchers from Rutgers University and the
University of Pennsylvania and will work in collaboration with researchers at
Universidad Católica in Chile and the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South
Africa.

Building upon existing research
efforts at Princeton, the project will provide insight into questions such as:
What are the properties of dark energy? What is the mass of a neutrino? How do
galaxies and their environments affect each other? What is the distribution of
mass in the universe?

In search of answers, researchers will study a patch of the
Southern sky that provides a snapshot of the universe shortly after the Big
Bang, and integrate data from a number of different instruments.

Observations from the new Southern African Large Telescope, the
largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, will allow participants
to study clusters of galaxies to learn how they form and evolve. The telescope
reported its first significant scientific results and images on Sept. 1 and
will become fully operational within a few months.

Meanwhile, components of a new radio telescope, the Atacama
Cosmology Telescope, currently are being tested on the roof of Princeton’s
Jadwin Hall. The telescope will be constructed in the Atacama Desert in Chile — a
high-altitude region known for dark skies and exceptional viewing weather. Its
first scientific data is expected in late 2007. When completed, the Chilean
telescope will provide the unprecedented sensitivity necessary to allow
astronomers to gaze deep into space.

Researchers also will collect ultraviolet and X-ray data from
satellites and incorporate existing data from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe, a satellite built in partnership with Princeton scientists
that has captured a high-resolution snapshot of the universe in its infancy and
produced dramatic insights into astronomy and physics.

Throughout the Southern Optical Astronomical Survey project, weekly
video and Web conferences will enable Princeton students to interact regularly
with their peers and develop the solid working relationships necessary for
successful international collaboration.

With additional support from Princeton’s Institute for
International and Regional Studies, Spergel also has planned a series of summer
schools and workshops for face-to-face encounters. Because the participating
institutions are in two hemispheres, summer school will take place every six
months.

Spergel and Page, along with several graduate students, will travel
to South Africa for the first school in January 2006. “There’s not really a
tradition of extragalactic astronomy and cosmology in South Africa,” said
Spergel. “So, for us to move into this new area is an exciting opportunity for
them.”

Princeton will host the second summer school session in June 2006,
a week-long meeting aimed at providing the common scientific background needed
to begin the collaborative investigation. Researchers from all the
participating institutions — along with Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaborators
from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, El Instituto Nacional de
Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica in Mexico and the University of Toronto and
the University of British Columbia in Canada — will be invited.

Spergel also expects to send undergraduate students to South Africa
this summer, and to Chile in subsequent years, to begin observational work,
which he hopes will evolve into topics for junior papers and senior theses. “I
think this will be a really nice way to send some physics and astronomy
students to do their junior year abroad,” said Spergel.